Review Category : In The News

The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) announced on Thursday that 52 Members of Congress have recently co-signed a bipartisan letter, authored by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), to Attorney General Eric Holder on the failure of the Department of Justice to prosecute Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists who hurt Americans.

EMET said in a statement on Thursday that the letter calls for “prompt and meaningful steps to enforce provisions of United States law” regarding Americans killed or maimed by PA terrorists. The letter notes in particular the release of terrorists by Israeli authorities during the Gilad Shalit deal who were responsible for the murder or grievous bodily injury of Americans.

One has come to expect anti-Israel activity thinly disguised by a veneer of academic posing from this venerable Ivy League institution.

On March 3, 2012, Harvard University will host a two-day conference on the “One State Solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Featured guests include academics who seek to delegitimize the Jewish state, the founder of Electronic Intifada and an ex- Palestinian official. No one remotely sympathetic to Israel is identifiable.

Prominent Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali warns “the threat of radical Islam to all of us, particularly Israel and America, is not just a military threat.”

WASHINGTON – Prominent Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali has warned that the current Arab uprisings may pose new threats for Islamic extremism to extend its influence not only through overt violence, but also through nonviolent political means.

The first of five Speaker of Truth award honorees at the pro-Israel Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET)’s annual Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner in Washington on Wednesday night, the Somali-born Ali argued in a live video speech that “The threat of radical Islam to all of us, particularly Israel and America, is not just a military threat. It’s more insidious than that.”

Ali, a former Dutch politician currently serving as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, made specific mention of the dangers posed by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. “The leadership of radical Islam has a radical agenda that gets most of attention, but [there is] also a nonviolent agenda,” Ali said. “The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamist organizations are right there in our midst.”

Ali’s comments come as Egypt prepares for its most democratic election in decades, in which the Muslim Brotherhood is projected to take a substantial proportion of the vote.

Ali touched on her personal encounter with Islamic extremism through her family and upbringing, warning about its impact on individuals’ development.

Ultimately, Ali argued, success in countering extremism must arise from countering the narrative of violence she charged is pervasive in radical Islamic culture so that new generations of Muslims would not be lured into extremism.

Ali said she would use the award as a new platform to help persuade others of the need to “not only understand where the threats come from, but to develop a counter-narrative. Just because you are a Muslim, it does not mean you are doomed to become an Islamist.”

“I think we can win that battle,” she declared.

EMET Founding Director Sarah Stern opened the dinner with a cry for US action in light of the current “Arab hurricane.”

Ms. Stern called on US President Barack Obama to cease military shipments to an increasingly bellicose Egypt, and to stop funding of the Palestinian Authority, which recently agreed to form a unity government with Hamas.

Stern also urged the current administration to openly call for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying that since Obama’s May 19 speech in which he called for Assad to either lead Syria to democracy or step aside, “[the United States] has done nothing over the past month to help the Syrians.”

In not taking these steps, Stern argued, the “only nation empowered… is Iran.”

Other awardees included Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona), who gave an impassioned speech on his commitment as an Evangelical Christian to the Jewish state, as well as Palestinian Media Watch founder Itamar Marcus and Iranian human rights activist Manda Zand Ervin. Sen.

Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) was also honored but was unable to attend the ceremony.

When Mosab Hasan Yousef left a San Diego courthouse with the news that he would not be deported from the United States, he telephoned Sarah Stern in her Washington, D.C., office.

“Sarah, we won!” he told Stern, president of EMET: Endowment for Middle East Truth, in the June 30 call. “They’re going to give me political asylum and are dropping the case. I want you to know that you’re the first person I’m calling.”

“I let out a scream I was so happy,” Stern said of her reaction.

The news climaxed Yousef’s three-year legal effort to settle in the United States, which he nearly sabotaged inadvertently with the March publication of “Son of Hamas,” a book that described his undercover work for Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of the best-selling, “Son of Hamas” who, on Wednesday, June 30, 2010, won the right to stay in the Unites States after a huge campaign by both Christians and Jews had called for him to be granted U.S. asylum, says he is still in “shock” at the news.

With his friends in court to support him, Yousef got the information during a 15-minute deportation hearing in San Diego, California, after a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorney said the government was dropping its objections.

Yousef, the eldest son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, became a Christian some time back after being given a Gospel tract in Jerusalem by a London taxi driver who was on vacation in the Holy Land.

After his conversion, he later became a spy for Israel’s Shin Bet agency and their leadership had praised his courage.

The battle to keep Yousef in America began when the DHS denied his asylum request in February 2009, claiming that he had been involved in terrorism and was a threat to the United States.

Yousef has now broken his silence and revealed his feelings in his latest blog in which he said, “Honestly, I am still in shock. I was sitting beside my attorney, focused on how I would answer the questions that were coming. Gonen ben Itzhak, my dear friend and former Shin Bet handler, had flown in from Israel to testify on my behalf and waited with a security guard in the empty courtroom next door.

“Judge Rico Bartolomei was entering into the record all the documents and motions that had been introduced since my last hearing, getting everybody on the same page before we started.

Yousef went on to say, “No one in the courtroom could get hold of what had just happened. Not me, not the judge, not my attorney. We were prepared for several hours of testimony and defense. But 15 minutes after we walked into the courtroom, it was over.

“There was nothing left to do. Judge Bartolomei granted me political asylum, pending a routine background check, rose and left the courtroom. Then the security guards efficiently led all of us out of the courtroom, down the halls, through the razor-wired fences and out into the parking lot, where a crowd of well-wishers applauded and cheered and network cameras rolled.

“As we drove home through San Diego, we thanked God for his grace and for all those he used to make this happen. For countless people around the world who prayed for me.”

He went on to thank the following:

“For U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), who circulated a letter through the House of Representatives that was co-sponsored by 21 other congressmen, asking DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to give “full consideration . . . to Mr. Yousef’s views and conduct in recent years, particularly his cooperation with Shin Bet at significant risk to his own safety and life.”

“For Tzachi Hanegbi, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of The Knesset (Israeli Parliament), MK Einat Wilf and other committee members for their very kind letter thanking me for my ‘actions to strengthen the security of Israeli citizens and Palestinian residents from 1998 to 2007.’

“For the wisdom and integrity of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“I am especially grateful to Sarah Stern, president of the Endowment for Middle Eastern Truth. Today’s blessings would not have happened without her and this amazing organization.”

So now, he is a free man in America, and now with this crisis behind him, we all need to pray for his safety as he fearlessly shares his faith in Jesus Christ.

The son of a Hamas strongman, who had provided Israel’s security establishment with valuable inside information for almost a decade, will not be deported from the United States, a California court ruled on Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland of Security ruled more than a year ago that Mosab Hassan Yousef should be denied asylum because he has “engaged in terrorist activity” and is a “danger to the security of the United States.”

However, on Wednesday Homeland Security officials indicated they were prepared to grant Yousef asylum, thus retracting their original intention, after claiming to have received new information which shed new light on the case.

The pro-Israel think-tank EMET, who had aided Yusef in his attempts to be granted asylum, said in a statement following Wednesday’s ruling that they were “enormously grateful to all those who played a part in standing with Mosab during this time, and helping the Department of Homeland Security come to understand what a grave error deporting Mosab would have been.”

The son of a Hamas founder who spied for Israel will be granted asylum in the US, a judge in San Diego ruled Wednesday.

Mosab Yousef, 32, had been threatened with deportation for engaging in terrorist activities, as detailed in his recent autobiography, though it was done in the service of Israel during his nine years as an undercover agent.

Wednesday’s hearing lasted 15 minutes, with the judge ruling that Yousef can stay in the United States – where he has lived since 2007 – after he passes a routine background check.

The United States has dropped deportation proceedings against the son of a Hamas founder who served as a spy for Israel’s Shin Bet security service. Mosab Hassan Yousef will be granted asylum in the United States following a routine background check, an immigration judge ruled Wednesday during a deportation hearing in San Diego, Calif. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorney said during the short hearing that the government was dropping its objections to the asylum request.

Yousef, 32, a convert to Christianity, has lived in the United States since 2007.

The eldest son of Hassan Yousef, a founder of the Palestinian terrorist group, Yousef was recruited by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, in 1997. Israeli agents have been quoted as saying that his information has prevented multiple terrorist attacks.

Yousef has written of his experience in a recent book, “Son of Hamas,” and now promotes the book on the conservative and pro-Israel speaking circuits.

Immigration authorities originally rejected his request for asylum, apparently based on his acknowledgment in his book that he worked for Hamas—even though he was employed in order to spy for Israel.

Hassan Yousef, who has been held in an Israeli prison since 2005, said in a statement following reports that his son had spied for Israel that he and his wife, as well as his other children, disowned their oldest son.

Jewish groups rallying to keep Mosab Yousef in the United States included Emet, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, and the Jewish Federations of North America. JFNA last week wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“Mr. Yousef’s conduct in preventing acts of terror by cooperating with the Israeli government would definitely place him in grave danger should he be forced to return to the Middle East,” JFNA Washington director William Daroff said in the letter, the Washington Jewish Week reported.

Gonen ben Itzhak, Yousef’s former Shin Beth handler, revealed his identity last week in a bid to bring attention to Yousef’s plight.

Ex-Hamas member Mosab Yousef, whose undercover work for Israel’s Shin Bet yielded intelligence that prevented terrorist attacks and saved Israeli and Palestinian lives, this morning won a key victory in his struggle to settle in the United States when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) abruptly withdrew its case to deport him.

DHS attorney Kerri Calcador announced in a San Diego court this morning that the department now agreed with Yousef’s application for political asylum, conditional on investigations to verify that he is not a security threat.

The announcement came in the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and “stunned” Yousef, his lawyer Steven Seick, said outside the building.

The United Nations and much of the world media have blasted Israel for alleged war crimes during its incursion into the Gaza Strip in January, but one Israeli tank commander is mounting a spirited defense, using declassified video footage from Israel Defense Force drones and commercial media. …